Extra Curricular Activities

Kirkcudbright Academy offers many opportunities for extra-curricular activities. Highlights of the school's social calendar include the unique Kirkcudbright tradition of the Junior and Senior Candlemas Balls in February and the Half-Marathon organised by staff and pupils in May.

Pupils can practise their various talents by helping to produce KAM, the school magazine, or by taking part on stage or behind the scenes in the bi-annual School Pantomime and the annual Showcase. The Young Enterprise Company gives 6th Year students the opportunity to manage a small business, designing and marketing an actual product. In addition, the English Department runs the yearly Ian Wishart Memorial Creative Writing Competition, the Peter Cook Memorial competition for non-fiction and "Youth Speaks", a public speaking contest.

Various sporting activities take place regularly at lunchtime or after school: hockey, rugby, table tennis, football, athletics, badminton, basketball, gymnastics and swimming. The school hockey, rugby, football and basketball teams compete against other local schools and participate in various regional tournaments. A school golf team takes part in the annual Regional Schools Golf Tournament in June and the school show jumping teams have enjoyed considerable success in national competitions. The S1 after-school Cookery Club provides pupils with an opportunity to enhance their skills in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. Other interests are catered for: pupils can learn to play or improve their skills in chess or bridge and the English Department organises trips to a variety of films and plays during the year.

The School Environment

Kirkcudbright Academy is proud of its environment and over the past few years, pupils, staff, parents and the wider community have undertaken several projects to improve the school grounds . These have included: creating a woodland walk; a tutor group reclaiming some neglected space and creating a small garden; making and installing seating and a picnic area; and the creation of our Beechgrove Memorial Garden - a project which was supported and filmed by the BBC (see over). Following on from this, in 2006, the entrance to the Memorial Garden was landscaped and this now offers an attractive insight into what can be found in the garden itself. Equally, the raised beds which lie adjacent to this have provided bountiful harvests of organic beans, leeks, onions and potatoes over the last three years. Finally, as part of a continuing programme of ground improvement, the entrance to the main car park has been landscaped by the Rural Skills class who have also created a Remembrance Flower Bed dedicated to the men and women of our services.

In 2007-08, the Eco-School group gained the Silver Award. This session we are hoping to achieve the prestigious Green Flag. This national award recognises schools that show a commitment to the environment, especially in the broad areas of environmental impact and sustainability. This session we will be continuing our efforts to encourage energy saving, waste paper recycling, composting and plastic bottle recycling.

Activities Week

For one week in June, the normal school timetable is suspended while S1/2 pupils and staff participate in a week of sporting, cultural and community activities. In recent years, pupils have had the opportunity to go on a variety of trips, including to Berlin and Stratford. Departments organise subject specific activities, including designing and building land yachts. Specialists are brought in to host workshops for pupils, while others participate in a bewildering array of sporting and cultural activities. Other pupils take part in environmental activities including working on local conservation and community projects.

School Trips

Pupils are regularly offered opportunities to travel to various events and places of interest throughout the session, both in Dumfries & Galloway and well beyond its boundaries. The School Fund plays an important role in subsidising the considerable transport costs of all our trips.

We expect that the variety of trips in session 2010-2011 will be as extensive as in previous sessions: field trips, visits to theatres, museums, art galleries, exhibitions, the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, careers conventions, universities, places of historical or geographical interest and expeditions. In June, during Activities Week all pupils in S1 and S2 will have the opportunity to participate in activities outwith the normal curriculum. Events will be local and further afield, sporting and cultural, practical and challenging: full details will be issued to pupils as the session progresses.

Support for Charities

Each year, the pupils in Kirkcudbright Academy choose to support a particular charity. The 6th year then co-ordinate fund raising events for this charity, with each year group organising activities.

Between 1999 and 2001, we gave £2,850 to the Children's Hospice Association Scotland for their appeal to build a children's hospice in West Scotland. In 2002 and 2003, we supported the Macmillan Cancer Appeal to build an Oncology Unit in Dumfries and £4,500 was raised by various activities. In 2004-2005 we worked for CLIC (Cancer and Leukaemia in Children) and The Meningitis Research Foundation and gave each charity £1,125. £4,500 was raised in 2005-07 to support the schoolchildren in the Pondicherry area of India following the devastation caused by the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.

Last session, S6 students decided to maintain support for the children of Pondicherry through scholarships, but also fundraised for CHAS and the Smile Train, an organisation that sponsors surgery for children in the Third World who are born with cleft palates and other facial deformities. Our current focus is on supporting the MS Society.